[governance] Google to Censor Blogposts

[Michael Gurstein]

So Google will then not only decide what is “pornographic” but it will also decide what might have “substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts”… 

 

And in this effort they will be accountable to who exactly? What/whose standards will they be using (San Francisco standards/Saudi Arabia standards/other)? What will be the review and appeal processes?  How will these review and appeal processes themselves be held accountable or subject to review and appeal? 

 

And how do they reconcile this with their very loud and very well-funded “Internet Freedom” campaign?  “Internet Freedom” for those good folks they choose to have Internet Freedom and censorship for the rest…?  What is to stop Google from censoring other types of expression (anti-Google political stances or those they consider that might lead some restrictions on Google’s business model for example… or imposing similar standards in other of their “free” offerings—Gmail, Search, GoogleDrive etc.

 

Note, I’m not arguing that what they are doing doesn’t need to be done but simply pointing out the hypocrisy (or simple mindedness) of their (and others) “Internet Freedom” campaign.  The extreme danger of the privatization of law in the Internet sphere and the very real and dangerous impacts of these campaigns and the delegitimation of the role of governments in having a regulatory oversight role in online activities and corporations.

 

I have no doubt that Google was forced reluctantly into the role of censor and would very much have preferred that someone else have that responsibility (and the cost of exercising that responsibility… But their having heavily contributed to breaking any immediate possibility for global governance frameworks in these areas, they get to own it and all the costs and headaches that will be involved.

 

I’m also very much aware of the role of states in attempting to censor and control information on the Internet.  But the conclusion that I draw from this is that we need globalized forms of “governance” in these areas to match the national governance structures.  I’m fully aware of democratic deficits in so many countries—those formally democratic and those that aren’t even bothering but at least in structures which are formally democratic there is some possibility of broad-based accountability—with private corporations and private law such as that from Google, there is none except the (highly uncertain) “discipline of the marketplace”.  The appropriate response to attacks or limitations on democracy is not less democracy but rather more.

 

These are real and important dilemmas and one’s which deserve real and important efforts at exploration and resolution—going beyond the memes and slogans of unthinking “Internet Freedom”, sanctification of the “it is whatever I say it is” multi-stakeholder formulations, and knee jerk juvenile anti-governmentalist libertarianism but rather something which come to grips with the reality of a world being transformed both for better and for worse by the Internet and the collective and global risks and responsibilities for developing effective measures for accountability and governance in the interests of the many, of the public interest and in support of a global public good.

 

M 

 

From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com] 
Sent: February 24, 2015 8:48 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Michael Gurstein
Subject: Re: [governance] Google to Censor Blogposts

 

https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/6170671?p=policy_update <https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/6170671?p=policy_update&rd=1> &rd=1

Note: We’ll still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.

 

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com> > wrote:

OK, “ <https://twitter.com/hashtag/InternetFreedom?src=hash> Internet Freedom”/ <http://FOE> FOE folks what do you think of this one? 

 

More privatization of the law? 

 

Good idea/bad idea?

 

http://techaeris.com/2015/02/24/google-warns-users-will-censor-blogger-porn/

 

M


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Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

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